Julian Casablancas Talks Solo LP, Strokes, Video Games

"I'm just trying to make music that would make people think, 'Oh shit, it's cool to do things like this now.'"

Photo by Williams + Hirakawa

With his devil-may-care attitude, expertly weathered leather jackets, and gritted croon, Julian Casablancas once defined what it meant to be a cool rock star in the twenty-first century. And while he still came off pretty damn cool when chatting on the phone earlier this week, he seemed a bit tentative, too.

When asked about living in L.A. compared to New York, it really did sound like he hadn't thought about the issue too much and was working out his preference in real time. The same uncertainty took hold when discussing the future of the Strokes. "We're supposed to get back together in January but don't hold me to that," he said, sounding a little frustrated by the prolonged gestation of his band's fourth album.

But Casablancas has plenty of other things to think about now that his debut solo record, Phrazes for the Young, is out and he's prepping for a globe-hopping tour in support of it. In this interview, the singer talks about his elaborate new live setup ("it's like half Pink Floyd laser light show"), his dog (who happens to be named after a character from "Perfect Strangers"), and his idea for a new video game:

Pitchfork: Are you in L.A. or New York right now?

Julian Casablancas: I'm in L.A. It's beautiful, perfect, sunny.

Pitchfork: Are you out there most of the time now?

JC: I've been working here for a bit so people assumed I moved out here, which is fine. It's not like, "How dare you say I live in Los Angeles!" [laughs] I'm here until December but then I'm done with L.A. for a long while. I'll be back in New York for the winter. I still live there.

Pitchfork: You're so emblematic of New York. Do you ever feel guilty when you're in L.A. for a while?

JC: No. Maybe if I moved out here I would. You hear that debate all the time, but both coasts are amazing. You're lucky to live in either one.

Pitchfork: On "Tourist", the last song on your new album, it sounds like you feel like there's no place you can call home sometimes.

JC: Yeah, I've been thinking that lately. Especially since New York is like one bar/restaurant/Whole Foods/Starbucks thing now. You used to have a range of neighborhoods but now there's like two cool streets in Manhattan. Somewhere between Lower East Side and Chinatown there's the "old vibe." That's what [the Phrazes song] "Ludlow St." is about, too-- that feeling of "what is your home?" It's like where you grew up is an illusion because it changes so much.

Pitchfork: Do you still feel like you have particular ties to New York?

JC: It's different. I don't know exactly where I stand right now.

Pitchfork: You don't hate New York now, though, do you?

JC: [Laughs] No, I don't hate New York. I understand that the cultural center of music in the city is Brooklyn but I would prefer living in a closet in Manhattan than a giant house in Brooklyn. There are a lot of cool bands in Brooklyn, but there are a lot of cool bands in L.A., too.

Pitchfork: In the 90s, people talked about how New York was so much cooler in the 70s and now people talk about how it was so much cooler in the 90s. It's like the city is always getting worse.

JC: Yeah. It's better that than some fucking urban war zone-- even though it's like that in some parts of New York. In L.A., it's so sunny out all the time that even though I'm working all day I have this illusion that I'm on some kind of vacation. New York is so condensed and exciting but you stay there too long and all that turns into anxiety a little bit. It's nice to escape here and there.

Pitchfork: It's easy to get spoiled by New York, too.

JC: Totally. In some places where we toured in Europe, everything closes at like six and television shuts down at like midnight. You're like, "What the hell?" [Laughs] It's like that Woody Allen thing: "I don't want Chinese food at three in the morning but I want to know that I can get it."

Pitchfork:Phrazes for the Young is really dense, sonically. It's a pretty big change from the first couple Strokes albums, which sounded more off-the-cuff. Would you say you're more meticulous now?

JC: Yes and no. Back then, if we wanted to find a certain drum sound I might spend hours on it, but now I just make up my mind quickly because I know what I'm going for and how to get it. But I take a lot more time on other things now. I've been working on this album for about a year and a half. What took so long was working by myself, without a band. When you work with a bunch of different people you're showing this guy the guitar solo, this guy the drum beat, this guy the bass line, and then they make it work together. With this album, I had to put myself in the seat of the drummer or bassist. If I were to do another album like this, I think I would work it all out with a band first and then go record it in like a week.

Pitchfork: Was it intimidating for you to take on this whole project on your own after being in a band for so long?

JC: Maybe a little bit before I started, but I felt pretty confident. I used to do everything-- guitar solos, bass lines, whatever-- with the Strokes but I tried to step away from that to make everyone in the band feel good and happy. Now I'm back in that singular mindset and I enjoy it.

Pitchfork: So now when you go back to the Strokes will you have trouble resetting back to that team mentality again?

JC: No, because it's harder to be the one working out every detail. It's easy to just say, "Oh, I'm just going to work on the main melody and the general structure of the song."

Pitchfork: I feel like the Strokes always represented this pretty youthful, angst-y outlook. But on Phrazes-- given the title and some of the lyrics-- it's like you're talking to the youth instead of for them.

JC: It's just the idea that so much knowledge and wisdom gets lost from generation to generation. For me, it's like things that I wish I had read when I was 16 so it wouldn't have taken me this long to learn them. I'm a pretty hopeful person, but there's definitely a dark undertone. In reality, there's definitely a super-depressing stream somewhere under the surface. I'm not ignoring that aspect but I'm not putting it on a pedestal either.

JC: I've always loved that RCA logo but it's always made me super depressed. It's called "His Master's Voice" so I always assumed the dog's master was dead and he was always listening to a recording of his voice like, "Hey, my master is in this machine." The similarity between the cover and the RCA logo was almost a coincidence, though. We were just shooting the thing, and they were like, "Let's take a few pictures with the dog." That's actually my dog.

Pitchfork: You've mentioned that you brought some of the songs on your solo album to the Strokes, but some people thought they wouldn't fit on a Strokes album. Do you ever feel trapped by the sound you created with the Strokes at this point?

JC: I definitely don't want to keep sounding the same. I'm just trying to make music that would make people think, "Oh shit, it's cool to do things like this now." People have tried and failed at combining funky, complex rhythms with melodies that work for a long time. Usually it's just one or the other. But some 80s stuff mixed those well, like "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", which has crazy rhythms but is not crazy somehow. I'd like to do the straightforward rock thing and then just go into weird polyrhythmic outer-space [laughs]. The ideal for me is to get really out there but have it go full circle and sound pretty normal.

Pitchfork: Is there a band that you think is doing that right now?

JR: Maybe Dirty Projectors. Right now there are definitely more good bands than there have ever been since I've been alive.

Pitchfork: I read in a New York Times article that your upcoming live shows are going to be quite the spectacle. What do you have planned?

JC: It could be a Stonehenge disaster but I'm going for it. There are going to be changing sets. It's like half normal and half Pink Floyd laser light show. It's not going to be interactive; I'm not going to start juggling. And if it's a disaster I will say "kidding around!" and then we'll just do normal shows.

It all came from wanting to do free shows, but you can't just do free shows because it'll cost thousands of dollars and you'll lose your house. So the idea was to charge more than average for a crazy, over-the-top show and then just play a free show the day after. The free shows would be on a stage on the back of a truck pulling into a parking lot or a park or something.

Pitchfork: Are the over-the-top shows the type of thing you'd be able to do with the Strokes?

JC: No, I would never get those four dudes to agree on something like that. You'd have one guy say, "Let's go out and have some Persian rugs and done!" And you'd have another guy say, "Let's dress like robots," and then nothing would get done.

Pitchfork: I like the robot idea, I'd go with that person.

JC: That person is me. [Laughs]

Pitchfork: I feel contractually obligated to ask you when the new Strokes album is going to come out.

JC: I'm done with the predictions. We're supposed to get back together in January but don't hold me to that. We've been trying to do it for years. I'm always available and they know that but getting together is tough.

Pitchfork: I read in a recent interview in the Guardian that Benjamin Franklin is one of your heroes and that you have dreams of inventing things. What kind of inventions do you have in mind?

JC: I don't know why I say these things in interviews. I'm just talking about practical, silly stuff. For example, a piece of luggage that also turns into a luggage cart. I might sell stuff on a website in the near future and see how it goes.

I've always had a serious desire to design video games, too. Mostly because there are a few things about video games that drive me nuts. Like, when you're playing a car game and you think, "Why can't I make a right turn here?" Or when you're James Bond and you can't turn around and shoot the guy because you aim at the ceiling and then the floor.

Pitchfork: Maybe you're just not that good at these games.

JC: [Laughs] No, I'm not explaining myself well.

Pitchfork: Do you have an idea for your own video game?

JC: No. I mean, yes...but I can't bring myself to get into it. It's embarrassing.Â

Pitchfork: C'mon.

JC: I have this one crazy idea. Do you remember Mario Kart for Nintendo 64? Well, something like that but the cars would all be from movies and TV shows, like the 60s Batmobile or the "Knight Rider" one or the "Dukes of Hazzard" car. Stupid ideas like that. You end up playing a lot of video games on the road.